“We’ve taken a massive step closer to bringing new representation to our district,” said Abigail Spanberger after accepting the Democratic nomination for Virginia’s 7th District.

Winning handily in a lopsided Democratic primary election against former Marine Corps Colonel Dan Ward, Spanberger will now go on to challenge Republican Congressman Dave Brat in a race that will be watched nationally.

While this is Spanberger’s first foray into elected politics, she is no stranger to government service, having begun her career as a federal law enforcement officer with the US Postal Inspection Service before becoming an operations officer with the CIA.

Spanberger has been clear about why she is running for elected office, telling MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt only last month that it was about cutting through the toxic politics.

“I think a major motivator for a lot of us as first time candidates is just changing the conversation completely, bringing civility back to the discourse that’s happening in Washington, and ensuring that we’re working for the people.”

After her victory today, she spoke in front of a crowd of about 200 supporters at the Westin Hotel in Henrico, saying, “Democracy is not a spectator support. Together, we are standing up for what is right.”

Many high-profile members of Virginia’s Democratic Party were also at the event, including Richmond’s Mayor Levar Stoney. Stoney told us he was optimistic about Spanberger’s odds in the general, saying, “Abigail will be a formidable opponent for Congressman Brat and I look forward to her success in November. She has a profile and she has a heart, and that goes a long way in elections.”

Mayor Levar Stoney

Event attendees were also buzzing with excitement. Carrie Pruett, a volunteer for Spanberger, was quick to talk about how she was motivated by Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016. “You could tell she wasn’t doing this for a photo op,” Pruett said, adding, “She’s found a way to stay true to her principles as a Democrat and also speak in a broad way to people looking for answers.”

Another supporter of Spanberger, David Parsons, said he was supporting the former CIA agent because of her stance on health care.

“Three weeks after retirement my wife was diagnosed with cancer,” he said. He described the current state of the health care system as causing him “continuous anxiety,” and expressed confidence that Spanberger would “stay true to her promise of proposing legislation to reform health care.”

In her victory speech, Spanberger told supporters that a change is coming to the 7th District.“I commit to carrying our message into the halls of Congress next year,” she said, adding that it was time for politicians to prioritize people over special interests.“With everything that’s at stake right now we cannot let up.”

She now faces the formidable task of toppling Republican incumbent and tea-party darling Dave Brat in November. Brat, a former economics professor at Randolph Macon College, won in a historic upset against then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014.

I will be honest: I am tired of talking about Jordan Peterson, the divisive Candian professor-turned-philosopher, and author, who happens to be making his way to Richmond this Saturday as part of his “12 Rules For Life Tour.” I am tired of defending his lectures on archetypes against his detractors. I am sick of criticizing his comments about women and the LGBTQ community to his devotees.

Having a middle-of-the-road opinion about Peterson is exhausting and isolating. And while there are more worthwhile voices to listen to today, he has jammed his hand into discussions about race, The Bible, patriarchy, Marxism, gender equality, along with a host of other contentious issues. He is seemingly everywhere. He has gained such rapid popularity by hitting so many conservative buzzwords and liberal pressure points that his publicist deserves a raise, and maybe even his own book deal on marketing. In a little more than two years, Peterson has garnered press coverage from numerous major media outlets, and has seen his YouTube videos hit millions of views, all while effectively planting his flag as one of the most controversial voices in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

This is not your primer on Jordan Peterson. Those articles have been written by the score. This is a bird’s eye view of the divide that he has come to represent.

For people on the right, Jordan Peterson is a hero. In his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, he speaks to a real need to find meaning and stability in an increasingly complex, chaotic world. His research and practice as a clinical psychiatrist inform these rules. Sure, they tend to hover under the title of self-help on the surface level, but it has been a #1 bestseller since its release in January, ahead of hundreds of other self-help books. Peterson’s philosophy has plugged into a group that, for the first time in history, finds itself with a target on its back: straight white men. He rails against post-modernism, Marxism, radical feminism, social justice warriors, and every other group that he perceives to be contributing to the spiritual malaise of western civilization.

For people on the left, Peterson is a “Nazi”. His rise to fame centered around his refusal to follow Canada’s Bill C-16, an amendment to the country’s Human Rights Act which protected gender identity and gender expression from discrimination in the workplace and from hate propaganda. He uses lobsters as an example to explain the naturalness of male hierarchies in animal species. He questions whether women should wear makeup and high heels in the workplace. He has called it absurd that biological sex and gender identity could be viewed as independent. He continues to make comments which highlight the gap in understanding between the throne of white privilege and the real-life tribulations of minority groups in western society.

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For those on the right, Peterson can do no wrong. His followers will post videos titled “Jordan Peterson DESTROYS Baiting Leftist Host,” as if that was somehow the point of an intelligent discussion. For those on the left, the scholarly, genuinely apolitical work that got him teaching positions at Harvard and the University of Toronto are unworthy of consideration because of his comments against various minority groups. A moderate approach to Peterson invites derision from both sides: this is an ideological war, and the Switzerlands in this sphere get stomped out and swept aside.

The Peterson debate is so important because it highlights how uncompassionate and how misunderstanding both extremes are in this political environment. To be sure: critics on the left aren’t unfounded in their blasting of Peterson’s stance on women and the LGBTQ community; but the manic criticism and personal attacks that have followed him on his rise to fame are indicative of the increasingly polarizing political climate.

While I was writing this piece, a Richmond-based Twitter account posted pictures of the Dominion Energy Center’s Director of Booking with her newborn baby, inviting followers to publicly berate and shame her. The discourse has gone absolutely mad. As a result, there’s no real desire to understand how the other side is shaping their worldview and that is extremely dangerous. We are hardly the defining generation of this country, but we are undoubtedly the defining generation: we’ve gotten so dangerously quick at labeling someone a “fascist” that the true meaning of the word, or any other catch-all moniker, is slowly deteriorating.

This runaway partisan extremism isn’t just felt on your Facebook feed either; it’s being tracked by the Pew Research Center and other think tanks who are picking up on this great divide. Since 1994, Pew has monitored 10 political values, and a recent report states that there is “an average 36-percentage-point gap between Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Democrats and Democratic leaners.” Political moderation in America is being eviscerated, with the base of both parties moving farther away from the center. How much has this grown recently? In 1994, it was only 15 points. Pew also reports that “the partisan gap is much larger than the differences between the opinions of blacks and white, men and women and other groups in society.”

Another fear that the Peterson debate brings to the surface is the rise of illiberalism, a low-information democracy without any “real buffers in the way of sheer populism and demagoguery,” as CNN’s Fareed Zakaria puts it.

What’s worse is that there’s an overwhelming sense that we haven’t seen even seen the worse of partisan politics as we head into the midterm elections this fall. These midterms will be a referendum on the ideological debates that Peterson is bringing front and center.

Jordan Peterson isn’t a real hero and he’s not a real “Nazi”; he’s a figure we’re all spending too much time talking about. What we should be doing instead is talking to real people in our community about how to solve these issues. Regardless of what you think about Peterson, he is bringing the spotlight to crucial debates in our country’s politics and giving us the ability to talk about them publicly. And yes, there is undoubtedly no place for white supremacy, misogyny, nor aggression against the LGBTQ community in the arena of intelligent debate; certainly not all political opinions are worthy of our consideration. We should definitely hold Peterson to task for those comments. But whatever side of this debate you fall on, we should use this opportunity to punch through our own ecosystem, escape the hivemind of partisan politics, and connect with someone on the other side. That is what Richmond, our state, and our country need most now.

Peterson will be at The Dominion Energy Center this Sat., June 9 at 730 pm. More details here.

You’re from Virginia. You live in Richmond. You care about politics. If you can check off all these boxes, there is only one destination: The office of Senator Tim Kaine. Why? Because Kaine has been one of Virginia’s steadiest political voices for over 30 years, and has served at every rung of government, from Richmond City Council to vice presidential candidate. And in an age of unbridled political cynicism, where the complexity can seem overwhelming, assurances from our elected leaders have never been more needed.

Which is why RVA Mag travelled to Kaine’s office in Washington DC to take the vibe on some of the most pressing issues facing the country and the Commonwealth in the age of Trump.

Originally printed in RVA #32 Spring 2018, you can check out the issue HERE or pick it up around Richmond now.

Even for people who have experienced politics at the source, the frantic pace of activity in Washington DC can be relentless. Kaine is at the center of this maelstrom, sitting on the armed services, budget, foreign relations, health, education, labor, and pensions committees in the Senate – confronting some of the most critical challenges of 2018. This particular Valentine’s Day morning was no different, with the Senate trying to move on bipartisan immigration legislation to protect the Dreamers. Still, Kaine was ever present as we sat down in his office to banter about the environment, immigration, foreign policy, and the role of young people in this new political age.

Shroder: Clearly, we live in a very cynical time, how do we keep young people engaged in politics in 2018?

Kaine: It’s a really good question, and one we struggle with, but I tell you what I start with is kind of a hopeful thought is what we saw in November in Virginia in 2017. Youth voting was dramatically greater than the governor’s race four years ago, massively greater if you go eight years before. But it was more than voting. It was volunteering and it was candidates. The fifteen newcomers who won house seats were predominately first time candidates, fairly young on average, eleven or fifteen were women, immigrant, LGBT, people of color, so it was really cool to see. So I think that we’re seeing a real upsurge in activity by young people.

I think the important thing is to not do anything to discourage them. Sometimes parties or leads of institutions [say], ‘You haven’t been here long enough, You haven’t paid your dues yet, we wanna run things’. I think those of us who are in the work kind of have to make space, encourage, campaign with and for young candidates. And I think the more we do that, the more others will see, ‘Oh, I could be running, I could do that’, so I think there isn’t anything magic to it, but I think those of us who are doing it really need to lift up young leaders because their example is going to be what really draws more young people in.

Shroder: Do you think Democrats, whether in Virginia or nationally, are doing enough to meet these young people in the spaces they’re operating in?

Kaine: On the national side, I have to admit I’m so into my job in Virginia, I’m running for re-election, and I’m not spending a lot of time about what the National Party is doing elsewhere. But I can say in Virginia, I feel good about it, especially after the [2017] election. Even before 2017, I’m not necessarily sure that everybody realized this upsurge that we were seeing, but on election day if you look at the results, you’re like, ‘wow, that’s really powerful.’ And since that election with the turnout of young people, I’ve seen a lot more effort paid to celebrate young leaders, we’ve got to give them key roles. I’m putting together my own campaign staff and it is going to very much look like the kind of Virginia today and tomorrow, not the Virginia of yesterday.

Shroder: You have taken a stand against the most recent budget because it seemed like billions were being cut out of Medicaid and Medicare. In Virginia’s 2017 gubernatorial election, Medicaid expansion was part of what ushered in Virginia’s wave election. But with all of the federal cuts though, is health care dead?

Kaine: No, I’m on the health committee and health education, labor, and pension. I think we need to take some steps to stabilize the individual market, guaranteed the cautionary payments that were apart of Obamacare. Also, stop the Trump administration from these nicks and cuts, they’re trying to destabilize and hurt people, we’ve got to stop that. We’ve at least stopped them from repealing the Affordable Care Act, but they could still damage it.

But I want to get to the next step discussion. You know, in fact, the 9:30 meeting I have, I have a group of healthcare experts on the hill today to talk about a proposal that I have with Senator Michael Beck, we call it Medicare Acts. We want to direct Medicare to develop an insurance policy that they would sell in the exchanges in each zip codes to the United States.

It would cover the Obamacare essential health benefits. But because Medicare would have to cover a profit margin, they don’t have to collect state medical taxes to pay for fancy salaries. They can offer that product at a really affordable rate. They could offer it in every zip code, and I think we need to add that element in the system to give people choices. I want people to have more choices, not fewer.

Shroder: I think in Virginia now in some places there is only one choice if you are on the exchanges.

There may be parts of Virginia where you have more than one, but there are many parts where there is only one. So if you were to give everybody a Medicare Acts policy that they could buy, it would be more affordable than other policies. Medicare operates in every zip code and young people move a lot. If you have health insurance here and you move to another state, is that company going to provide health insurance or not? You could move anywhere and Medicare would be available.

This is a policy I think is geared towards affordability and choice, but it’s also really geared toward the way people live today, where people move during their work lives, and they don’t have to worry about what health insurance will be available in a place they move to.

Shroder: The Dreamers are obviously on everyone’s mind. I don’t want to ask a technical question about political horse trading, but how did we get to a point of political brinkmanship where people are comfortable with the idea that families can be torn apart?

Kaine: This is a policy that sharply divides the two parties. There are Republican counter-examples to what I’m going to say. The Republican Party, when I ran for governor, one of the two major attacks against me on TV was ‘Kaine’s soft on immigrants’. That was in 2005, so this has become a real common theme on the Republican side.

Tim Kaine Campaign Launch at Maggie Walker

I tell a different story. Here’s Virginia: When I was born in 1958, one out of every one hundred Virginians was an immigrant, had been born in another country, we were thirty-eighth in the nation per capita, and we were a poor state. Today, one in every nine Virginians was born in another country, so a lot of immigration. We’re twelfth in the nation per capita income, we’re a better off state. No state has moved farther than Virginia economically. Our economic improvement has coincided with more immigration. Why? Because we’re in a global economy in a global economy. And in a global economy, it’s not just an airport or a port that connects you with the world, it’s people that connect you with the world.

We have become a magnet for talented people from around the country and around the world, that’s been to our advantage. So I tell that story anywhere I go in Virginia, that immigration has been a real net positive for us, and it’s been a net positive for our country.

Shroder: What do young people have to know about the legal immigration debate? There seems to be an intense focus on the Dreamers because everyone can sympathize with their situation. But we keep hearing about chain migration, is this just another way to demonize immigrants?

Kaine: I think that when the president talks about chain migration and then he says, ‘you can come here and then willy-nilly bring anybody you want,’ the way he said in the State of the Union – that’s not what happens. Can you sponsor family members if you’re a US citizen? You can, but it is a long and onerous process. If you’re coming from the Philippines, it could take 18 or 20 years for a sponsorship application acceptance. So this notion that you can just become a citizen and drag everybody with you is just not true.

Shroder: Where does one even begin with the environment? It seems like a lot of climate protections are being systematically deconstructed.

Kaine: We have an administration where the key people don’t even believe in climate science, which is an embarrassment.

Shroder: One of the biggest issues for us in Virginia is the potential licensing of offshore drilling rights. Where does that leave us given that the coastal economy is such a big factor in Virginia’s economy?

Kaine: It’s not a good idea. 10 to 12 years ago I was open to this idea. Before BP Horizon and the spill. VA Beach and Norfolk were [thinking], ‘Well maybe it would be a new pillar to add to our economy,’ but after BP there’s been a serious rethinking of that. I think what people have realized is [that] the second largest metro area in Virginia is Hampton Roads, and that is an economy that has a couple of pillars. DOD [Department of Defense] is a pillar, tourism is a pillar, and things connected to the Chesapeake Bay and the waterman’s industry are pillars too.

And so offshore drilling is still pretty speculative. Oil prices are coming down, and we’re moving more toward wind and solar, which we should. So do you want to bet on a speculative pillar if it’s going to hurt the existing pillars? The DOD has weighted against it. NASA has weighed against it. The tourism industry has weighted against it. And that’s caused cities like Norfolk and Virginia Beach to switch and become opposed. So I think it’s a bad idea, and I’m working with Democrats and Republicans to try to convince the Trump administration, at least about Virginia – it’s a bad idea.”

Shroder: You sit on the foreign relations and armed services committees. What are the most pressing foreign policy challenges today?

Kaine: I’ll put two on, but I could give you ten. Congress needs to claw back from the executive power over war-making and to some degree even over key articles issues. Congress has let a lot of power go to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue on matters of war, peace, and diplomacy under presidents of both parties. It’s been a long-term phenomenon. Congress has to reinvest itself in being deeply involved in making these decisions and checking on an overreaching executive. That’s number one.

And then the second one, I think this refugee issue is huge because we think about refugees like they’re the episodic victims that show up every ten years after something and we think of it as kind of an emergency response. Migration is now not an emergency. It’s an everyday permanent reality.

Tens of millions of people because of war, natural disasters, climate change, and corruption are moving around the world. And when they do, they create all kinds of instabilities. It might be an instability like Syrian refugees in Jordan because they have so little water that puts pressure on them. Or it might be instabilities, like refugees that flow into other countries and then it leads to right-wing movements in other countries, neo-nationalist parties in Western Europe that are getting power because of their anti-refugee position. I think a global commitment toward thinking about migration policies in a different way and coming up with a set of strategies to deal with migration and refugees like a permanent phenomenon rather than episodic emergencies is really important.

“I believe that women are running for office–I’m sorry, I’m working and just…”

I heard a scuffling of papers in the background while Delegate Hala Ayala paused, early in our conversation about a wave of women candidates elected to the Virginia House of Delegates this past November.

“…Doing a lot. This surge of women are finding out that after this election, and after the Women’s March, we have to have a seat at the table, versus being on the menu. Women are stepping up and striking out against those injustices. We’re saying this is no longer acceptable.”

The scuffling continued, but Ayala, focused, finished our interview and her paperwork without further distraction.

Originally printed in RVA #32 Spring 2018, you can check out the issue HERE or pick it up around Richmond now.

Multitasking is just one of her many strengths. She’s a single mother of two who served on former Gov. McAuliffe’s Council of Women. She’s a cybersecurity specialist who worked for the Department of Homeland Security and founded the Prince William County chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She helped organize the Women’s March in Washington this past year and now she’s the delegate for the 51st District in Virginia’s House of Delegates.

And she’s just the beginning.

In the 2017 election cycle, 11 new female Democratic delegates were voted into the General Assembly. This made the total number of women in the General Assembly (GA) rise from 17 to 27, including four Republican delegates – the highest we’ve ever had.

Delegate Vivian Watts described the recent election as a tipping point, saying, “Critical mass is when you reach about a third, so at 27 [women] we’re pretty close to critical mass.” In social dynamics, critical mass means there is a large enough number of independent changes in the innovation of a social system that the rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining and creates further growth. It creates a tradition of collective action, meaning enough people have committed to a cause that they devote themselves to that common cause.

Watts represents the 39th House District, a seat she has held intermittently since 1982. “I really do find some element of that critical mass” after the recent election, she said. “I know for myself, that I’m much more willing, or I feel much more comfortable speaking out on some issues because I know [there is] a better understanding of the issue around me. There’s only one thing worse than just enduring in silence, and that is to say something and have it absolutely dismissed.”

Watts has had a distinguished career, including service on over 35 boards and citizen task forces, and is the author of two books on criminal justice. She’s been a state legislative aide, president of the Fairfax League of Voters, and has two children and four grandchildren. She remembers when the few women who were in the House simply did not appear after hours at social functions.

“You can’t do business that way, especially when we have such short six and eight-week sessions,” Watts said. “You’ve got to get to know each other. That was one of the things I was determined, when I got elected, [that] I would be sure and participate as much as I possibly could. [I was determined] to also make sure that I kept relaxed and kept a sense of humor. Just try to be more part of a collegial setting, rather than assuming that there wasn’t a place for me.”

Watts says it’s far more common for women to have real connections with the other female members of the General Assembly. The shared experience among the women in the GA allows for a larger conversation than the male-dominated discussions of the past, and Watts knows she can stand up, talk about an issue pertinent to women, and have it understood by at least one-third of the room. “I look to ever greater influence, in the years to come, of this shared experience being a part of the legislative considerations about what really is in the best interest of all involved,” she said.

The number of women in office is just one of many significant firsts from the November elections, especially for the Democratic delegates.

Kathy Tran, who represents the 42nd district, is the first Asian-American to serve in the GA. She fled from Vietnam with her parents at just seven months old, on a perilous sea journey. Delegates Hala Ayala and Elizabeth Guzman are the first Latino women in the GA. Local journalist Danica Roem became the first transgender person to ever be elected to a state legislature, and Dawn Adams, a nurse practitioner who also works for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, is the first openly lesbian delegate.

In total, 43 Democratic women, nine Republican women, and one independent ran in House races in 2017. Those numbers are record-breaking.

Emily Brewer (R), a small business owner and delegate representing the 64th House District, attributes the change to modern technologies and abilities, which she says make it easier for women to juggle their lives and also feel empowered to bolster change. “There are a lot of women now that are small business owners and leaders, entrepreneurs, and it’s a different time for women to really lead. And I think that’s led to having more women in politics,” Brewer said. “I don’t see a marked difference [in the GA]. What I do see is a sense of excitement, especially since women have more representation on both sides of the aisle.”

Ayala, along with several other women who ran for office this past year, sees the change as a direct result of dissatisfaction with the current president. “I left everything I knew and my blanket of security because I was unwilling to sit on the sideline and watch this leader that we have, of the free world that I honor and am so proud of, implement the policies in my backyard that he plans to implement,” Ayala said. “He comes with every attribute I don’t believe a leader should have.”

Another debut this election cycle was the #MeToo movement, which Watts sees as a major factor in women running for office and winning elections. She sees the movement as a way to not only address predatory sexual behavior but to go farther and tackle the systematic patriarchal power structure that has oppressed women, including herself, for centuries.

“It’s the fact that women in a professional setting are so often put into a no-win situation,” Watts said. “What you have in the Me Too movement is also that expression of, ‘I want to be the whole person that I am professionally as well as be a woman. I don’t want to have to be in a situation where that is compromised or dismissed.’ The Me Too movement I see is far more than just the issue of broadly stated sexual harassment.”

Not only are women sitting at the table, they’re bringing their experiences to it. Delegate Brewer, who was adopted, has already passed a new bill supporting and amending foster parent adoption. As many new mothers and women bring their dynamic life roles to the House, they are swaying the conversation.

“My interest is in looking at policy from a holistic lens that takes into account the interconnectedness of life experience and how we make policy that supports quality outcomes in our lives,” said Dawn Adams, who represents the 68th House District. “I put forward a bill to create the Commission for a Healthy Virginia. I think that’s a different kind of suggestion than male counterparts make, in that it’s a really broad lens on how we get to where we want to go, looking at it from an all-encompassing perspective, rather than just piecemeal and trying to put out fires from a policy perspective.”

Social movements like #MeToo are not lost on these women. They talk about community fears with empathy and foresight, where those concerns were previously dismissed as unimportant or matters of personal weakness. One policy, in particular, stands out to Delegate Watts as vital.

“We need to have a comprehensive workplace harassment policy so that the public feels very comfortable about what the procedures are, should they be concerned about anything that they are experiencing or that happened to them,” Watts said. “It needs to be broadly defined to include all of the public, not just employees of the GA, and I believe strongly that it needs to include our activities year-round. It’s not just walking in here for eight weeks in the building that has my desk in my office, but it is the entire interface with the public. They need to have that comfort level where there is full protection as well as proper procedures to make sure there is nothing where people might use their position of power inappropriately.”

Small changes have been enacted at the GA already, such as the addition of two nursing rooms, but some delegates say the changes don’t address systemic issues and hurdles.

“We cannot let up over the next couple of years, and we need to have that voice of diverse women jumping in,” Adams said. “If we’re just sitting in seats and we’re not able to make effective policy, we haven’t helped anyone. We have to stay engaged and I hope that more women with more diverse life experience will get in and support each other.”

Adams worries that because of the influx of Democratic Party members to a GA still dominated by Republicans, a vein of contention has been sliced open, driven by a fear of losing control. “My personal perception is that nothing has changed,” she said. “It may even not be as Democratic-friendly because of the big shift in people who are now in the GA.”

She says most bills proposed by Democrats are killed at the subcommittee level, often moving to pass by them indefinitely. “It kind of doesn’t matter how strong the policy, or what the policy might have to say,” Adams said. “There seems to be a very regimented process where you can almost tick the boxes. It’s prescriptive.”

Despite the challenge, Adams says this is exactly why women, or anyone with new ideas to tackle patriarchy, cannot back down. Critical mass has just begun. It’s time to create further growth.

Our vision of a typical politician is changing because of these women. They’re delegates, but they are also mothers, grandmothers, small business owners, advocates, nurses, cybersecurity analysts, authors, artists, humans. And they’re angry. And they’re doing something about it.

“Women are no longer willing to remain silent or on the sidelines,” Ayala said. “We’re grabbing our clipboards, we’re grabbing our sneakers, and we’re knocking the hell out of a lot of doors to make a lot of change.” And that’s all before lunch.

VCU kicked off their celebration of Black History Month with a series of events, tours, speakers, and screenings Feb. 1, and last week, guest lecturerand acclaimed historian and New York Times best-selling author, Ibram X. Kendi came to discuss his book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

He spoke in front of a packed lecture hall in VCU’s Cabell library Thursday, breaking down the complexities of racism in America with succinctness and clarity, without belying the country’s fraught, cyclical record of race and oppression.

Kendi is the youngest winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, awarded for Stamped from the Beginning, a history of “how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.”

Photo Credit: Andre Chung

“Writing a history of racist ideas—and Stamped from the Beginning was a narrative history of literally the entire course of racist ideas from their origins in 15th century Portugal, to the present—the first and most important thing that I had to do was probably the most difficult thing I had to do,” said Kendi. “And that was, very simply, to define a racist idea.”

Kendi defined a racist idea as “any idea that suggests a racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group in any way.” He breaks the issue into a three-way debate, sorting racism into two primary camps of thought. First is Segregationist, the idea that black people are inherently and genetically inferior. The second is the assimilationist idea, believing that black people became inferior over time. The two sides are the product of one of the most pervasive debates of our time, nature versus nurture. Both racist ideas lend themselves to the systematic, cultural, political, and economic oppression of the black population.

The third camp, he argued, isn’t not-racist, but anti-racist. “The real problem, anti-racists have said, is not the people, it’s the lack of opportunities and resources for those very people.”

However, Kendi does not just tackle the definition and history of racism, he offers a cause and—more importantly—a solution. While Americans are long taught that the root of racism is ignorance and hatred, Kendi disagrees. He wanted to distinguish between the producers of racist ideas and the consumers. While the consumers are primarily driven by ignorance, it’s the producers of racism—the people who pen the novels and deliver the political speeches—that he’s most interested in.

“What is behind the production of these ideas? I found that these people were not ignorant, and many of them were not even hateful toward black people,” said Kendi. “What I realized is that these people, these powerful people, these powerful intellectuals who are producing these ideas, were producing them typically to defend existing racist policies. That those racist policies typically were not coming out of racist ideas, they were coming out of economic, political, and cultural self-interest. In other words, people were enslaving people not because they thought they should be enslaved, they were enslaving them so they could make money.”

Therefore, he argued that the solution is not to educate away people’s ignorance and hatred, but to change existing racist policies. “It’s very difficult for me as a professor to say that I could spend my lifetime teaching away racist ideas of my students, of people that I speak to, but at the same time, I know that people who are benefitting from racist policies are going to continue to mass produce racist ideas,” said Kendi. “If ignorance and hate is coming out of racist ideas, and if racist ideas are coming out of racist policy, then if we really want to get rid of ignorance and hate and racist ideas, our focus should be on changing and eliminating racist policies.”

Kendi references Trump without ever saying his same, debunking the popular myth that we are living in a post-racial society, an institutional denial that was constructed to avoid scrutiny of our actions and the on-going perpetuation of prejudice.

Kendi said that this is a society that maintains racist ideas, while outwardly denying that they are racist. “Every single person whose ideas I chronicle, simultaneously have stated that their ideas are not racist,” said Kendi. “Nobody wants to be on that side of the line, but everybody wants to retain their ideas.”

An incredibly engaging speaker, Kendi is poised and eloquent, and the audience was visibly engaged, chiming in with noises of assent and even laughter. Though these are ideas that most of us are superficially aware of, that exist in our peripheral, to have them verbalized clearly and assertively, paired with a method for change and progress, was incredibly impactful.

Last Friday, I had the experience of a lifetime. I visited the Virginia General Assembly as a legislative assistant for Del. Dawn Adams of the 68th District, working with her assistant – Maureen Hains. I first met Adams during a phone interview last year, which actually ended up becoming an article for RVA Mag. A few weeks later, she won her delegate seat and my family was invited to the swearing-in ceremony. After the main event, she talked to me about the Legislative Aide for a Day program.

Henry Haggard

I was intrigued, so of course, I said yes. After pages of forms, I was finally ready to skip school last Friday so I could work at the Capitol during the morning session. Right away, I was put right to work – starting with converting the long list of sign-ins from the guest book to an excel spreadsheet. This was interesting but tedious. As you can imagine, it was extremely difficult to read some people’s handwriting, abbreviations, smudges, and messy cursive. On the other hand, it was cool to learn how delegates in the General Assembly actually care about their constituents and visitors; enough to spend hours writing thank you’s and messages to the people.

I can’t think of any other political office that does that. After being paid in chocolate, juice, soda, and chips, it was time for session, which started at 10:00 am. We went to the General Assembly Delegate building, and while everyone was waiting for session to start, I started flipping through the schedule to look at the bills and voting schedule. Apparently, the delegates read through and discuss bills three times before they vote. Unfortunately, this was only the second reading, which was a bummer because I wanted to see the voting process in action. The speaker eventually banged the gavel, which happened to be much bigger than the gavels we use at Model UN – and then the session would start – or so I thought.

We started with the Pledge of Allegiance. At school, I sit during the pledge to protest institutionalized racism on the basis of economic disparity, gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement and restrictions, monopolized industry of pharmaceuticals, and the threat of congressionally-assisted gun massacres. I was fine standing this time despite my anger over the “Under God” section. Anyway, I thought that would be the only sketchy part of the day, but afterward, we were introduced to a priest.

Head Down, Hard at Work.

This was a little strange for me especially when the priest started leading everyone in prayer. It wasn’t even subtle; he specifically mentioned following Jesus Christ to lead a successful and fulfilling life.

Some lines cannot be crossed, especially when it is a constitutional violation to merge religious beliefs and the people’s government. Taking the constitution out of my pocket, I quietly asked Hains how this was legal. Apparently, the courts ruled that it was, despite the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” After that disquieting event, the delegates proceeded into session.

The delegates were very down to earth. They were all visibly grateful that it was Friday and everyone cheered when the motion to close session passed. They were, contrary to what most expect, very polite and nice to the colleagues that they disagree with. Popular belief suggests that political debate is chaotic and immature. While this is true in some cases, our state legislature rises above those expectations.

Other than doing a couple votes to reschedule debates and committee meetings, there were a few speeches. Before the speeches, a delegate made an announcement that the delegate next to him just had his tenth grandchild, to which everyone cheered. The speeches reminded me of Model UN – more specifically when someone you didn’t expect to speak walks up with a few messy notes and gives a speech that leaves the opposers stunned. This happened with an anti-expanded Medicaid speech and a speech about the people who should be commemorated for their outstanding work in the Civil Rights Movement during Black History Month.

Although I dislike the idea of not expanding Medicaid, I could respect the work put into the research, notes, and public speaking. The delegate who gave the speech had enough decent ideas about politics to be in office, and it showed in his work. This kind of respectful opposition and debate is what I like about politics. Politics, if not respectful and well-articulated, does not belong in any office, especially in a time where ad hominem fallacies, or personal attacks, are thrown around like cats and dogs.

After that, we went back to the Pocahontas Building to do some extra constituent data work. I put the information I could read into a site that tracked what district people live in. Then, it was almost noon and time for my legislative aid session to end.

As I was leaving, Adams introduced me to other delegates. I met Schuyler Vanvalkenburg, Deborah Rodman, and a few other delegates who took some pictures with me. I had seen a couple in the halls, but didn’t know that they were delegates. I wondered how many delegates, senators, or other important people I had bumped into in the elevator or the halls without knowing it. Once again, I saw how down to earth these people were. I told them about my petition to demand police transparency, and Vanvalkenburg asked me when I would rule the world, right before another delegate gave me his card telling me to hire him when I’m older.

Maybe next time I’m there I’ll be a page, a Legislative Assistant, or a representative.